[Official] Ghost of the Past | Ghost of the Past

[timetock]

Once you get a fair amount of upped cards, like Gold arena level, you generally want to farm Plat and FGs. Why you would clamour for something ai3 abusable, I don't know.

Though I have to agree ghostmare is such a pain to play against. You can't even use sanctuary because he'll steal it. However ghost of the past isn't something what i'd call OP. Or broken.

tl;dr nah. Not OP. If it was OP I would see it more in PvP. Which I don't.

[Keolino]

If it was OP I would see it more in PvP. Which I don't.

People really don't like to play against Ghostmare.
That's one side of the medal. But people don't like playing WITH Ghostmare as well. (At least that is the feeling that I got...)

[Naesala]

The problem with ghostmare isn't just GotP+Nightmare. It's the other things it can pack.

Ghostmare has Steal and Reverse Time, two already annoying cards. So, when facing a Ghostmare, you face draw denial, unblockable damage, your permanents turned against you, your creature's effectively gone forever, and if you have no other permanents; your quanta producers removed. This makes games dreadfully boring and painful. Devtal may lock you down, but Ghostmare forces you to punch yourself in the face.

The second problem is Ghostmare packs the counter to it's counter (this is also the problem with Mono Aether). Ghostmare can steal sanctuaries that stop the nightmare effect, or hourglasses/sundials that give the player draw power, and then make use of either. So, you can't casually counter Ghostmare. The only way you can stop it is if you've got an exceptionally hard counter, the only ones I can think of being Monotime rush and Earth+Light EM Stall with PA's.

It's just unpleasent to go up against, and not creative.

[omegareaper7]

The problem with ghostmare isn't just GotP+Nightmare. It's the other things it can pack.

Ghostmare has Steal and Reverse Time, two already annoying cards. So, when facing a Ghostmare, you face draw denial, unblockable damage, your permanents turned against you, your creature's effectively gone forever, and if you have no other permanents; your quanta producers removed. This makes games dreadfully boring and painful. Devtal may lock you down, but Ghostmare forces you to punch yourself in the face.

The second problem is Ghostmare packs the counter to it's counter (this is also the problem with Mono Aether). Ghostmare can steal sanctuaries that stop the nightmare effect, or hourglasses/sundials that give the player draw power, and then make use of either. So, you can't casually counter Ghostmare. The only way you can stop it is if you've got an exceptionally hard counter, the only ones I can think of being Monotime rush and Earth+Light EM Stall with PA's.

It's just unpleasent to go up against, and not creative.

Reverse time is a given, it isn't nearly as strong without. However steal is much harder to find room for. Running less then 12 pillars is a large hindrance already, and taking out nightmares or ghosts decreases the chance of getting it early.
Now, that isn't to say it is impossible to run a steal or two, but more then that and, unless built for it, it becomes a hindrance.

[Keolino]

Reverse time is a given, it isn't nearly as strong without. However steal is much harder to find room for. Running less then 12 pillars is a large hindrance already, and taking out nightmares or ghosts decreases the chance of getting it early.
Now, that isn't to say it is impossible to run a steal or two, but more then that and, unless built for it, it becomes a hindrance.

upped
darkness mark
7-8 pillars
5-6 pends
6 ghosts
4-6 nightmare
2-3 steal
3-4 reverse time
0-1 Eternity
0-1 Vampire Dagger
makes 27-35 cards, you can make the variations you like from here on. (looking right now, I would probably try the 27 cards+8th pillar+4th reverse time+5th nightmare out first.) <-- that makes 30 cards with 13 pills/pends, without lacking any of the combo cards. I don't know how you would possibly get below 12 pills/pends when building ghostmares, if you don't want to go below that number.

I never tried Ghostmare, but I was able to make a list on spot, so it probably isn't that difficult to do. Probably isn't perfect though, since I haven't played a since test match.

[omegareaper7]

Swapping pillars for pendulums really hurts the speed at which ghosts come out, and going above 30 cards when you need one of 6/7 creatures asap is just a suicide risk.

I apologize if I am leaving something out, the post is mildly confusing, which could be because I am tired, who knows. Also, I feel as if we are going off topic from the original idea of the thread.

[Keolino]

Swapping pillars for pendulums really hurts the speed at which ghosts come out, and going above 30 cards when you need one of 6/7 creatures asap is just a suicide risk.

Spoiler for off topic explanations:

Ok, maybe my post is a bit confusing. I didn't want to go above 30 cards, but since the core only has 27 cards, I meant to fill the last 3 cards with variations and try it out.
About the speed when swapping pillars pends I can't say for sure, but with an elite queen deck of mine (costs 6 quanta) with a tower/pend split (5 towers+8pends in 30 cards, if I am not mistaken), doesn't hurt the FIRST Queen the tiniest bit. (The second takes it's time though...) Upped ghost costs 7 quanta, so one more, but I don't think that that would be a really hurting difference. Instead, I want to have some more darkness quanta, so that I can get some more dark quanta for steals if the opponent plays a sanctuary fast.

Back at the topic, I think it is true that Ghostmare is a pretty strong deck, but I don't think it is OP. That is simply because it easily sucks if you get a bad hand.
Unupped, it can't even farm bronze, and upped nobody ever recorded wins for bronzer or silver in the 1.32 arena thread (And I wouldn't think that it would be able to farm more than bronze or silver).

Ghostmare sucks against faster rainbow rushes, and it gets a huge problem if the opponent has some miracles, or has a strong enough shield (fog, dusk, permafrost, turtle, or jade+healing, or diamond+healing) when you don't have enough steals.

^^everything personal experiences when playing AGAINST ghostmares, so nothing I can be 100 % sure of. (I actually did test unupped Ghostmare against bronze though...)

[timetock]

so... the only abusable thing about ghostmare... is that it annoys the heck out of your opponents. Which it does, for me. A lot. Impossible Plat decks ugh.

[CrockettRocket]

How much worse would it be IF obsession was 8? Still viable? Still good? Or only playable in the arena?

[omegareaper7]

How much worse would it be IF obsession was 8? Still viable? Still good? Or only playable in the arena?

6 unupped 8 upped? Would still be very much workable. Not quite as strong, but honestly, it doesn't need to do all that much damage to help win. Not against it, though, also not for it.

[Keolino]

How much worse would it be IF obsession was 8? Still viable? Still good? Or only playable in the arena?

You should be careful about huge nerfs of cards. Just imagine Ghost of the Past is your favourite card, and then you see it nerfed by half. People tend to get disappointed in games and leave them because of things like that. When you nerf something, try to keep it small, and then look how the card/deck works now. I am totally against that 6-8 obsession, but I would be fine with trying out something like 8 unupped 10 upped. (Or to increase the nightmare cost unupped and upped by one each, but that is off topic)

[Pineapple]

Ghost of the Past isn't OP.
Ghost of the Past + Nightmare isn't even that OP.
The problem is that Darkness and Time have access to Steal and Reverse Time. So this isn't a question of individual card balance anymore. This is about, at its core, balance within the structure of how EtG and its basic mechanics work.
Nerfing Ghost of the Past won't fix the problem. Nerfing balanced cards because of powerful yet easily countered decks would only make the problem worse in the long-run.